I'm a guy and I love playing as a female in games when ever I get the chance. Most of the time I love the clothes and their hair...and the male character normally looks ugly and dull. They rarely if ever have the same hair styles for the male characters in games that allow both, some games do but not very often sometimes never. And the clothes often look ten times better on the female character then the male clothes. I personally would like to see male versions of the same hair and clothes for both genders. And vise versa. I think it's unfair they have opposite clothing. There should be an option to choose the same clothing. Yes I am aware it would probably take longer to render male versions of each clothing style/equipment but I don't care. Yes I'm a girly guy and I'm proud of it. I love High Heels and styled hair. They never have feminine male lead roles...and when they do most of the time it depends on what "time period" its set in.

Only if the female is a counterpart to a male and she has better abilities or something.
Like in Dungeon Fighter Online.
Big differences between Male and Female in the Fighter, Gunner, and Mage classes.

I see no problem with a male playing a female character or a female playing a male character. Really, I don't see why there should be any problem at all. Yeah, I do know that there can be some awkwardness but...eh, so what?

I'm a male and usually I play a male character in MMOs, but I'll often create a female character or two as a side character to play once in a while. But my main characters are almost always male, that's just me...

I think the stigma about it largely comes from mmorpg players who enjoy interacting with members of the opposite sex through the game. Often the people I see who are against it are the same people who flirt obnoxiously or roleplay, badly I might add, romances with other characters. The idea that they could be engaged in relations with someone who is misrepresenting themselves disgusts them and thus they look down on it or try to antagonize those who play opposite gender characters. It's just what I've personally observed and that was on Neverwinter Nights and Everquest 2.

In the early Harvest Moon games, you had no choice but to play as a guy, and in about half of them you're expected to get married. It messes with your mind a bit when you're practically forced to virtually date and marry another girl.

Suffices to say, when I have the chance I prefer to play as my own gender.

I don't see a problem with it, as I usually play as a female only once I complete a male file in order to experience differences in the story. If people want the female side of it, they can go right ahead. As for MMOs, who cares? It's just a game.

Fun fact(?): More females have male characters than males have female characters in order to avoid sexual harassment. I can't remember where I heard this, but it sounds very plausible.

There's not really a problem imo. A guy can play as a girl avatar and vice versa.
I usually chose base on armour/clothing. If the guy clothing looks awesome I'll play as a guy and if the girls clothing look cooler i'll play as a girl.

Why shouldn't people be able to choose to play as the opposite sex? I've done it before both on mmorpgs and on some games like Pokémon. I've never once been hit on for playing as a girl, but my dad has before. XD